


ni con los temblores tiemblo

by Lleavingwonderland



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: And I Really Wanted A Fic Where The Bastard Finally Gets What's Coming To Him, Gen, In Which Zeus Has Been A Tyrant For Long Enough, Justice for Jason Grace, Minor Thalia Grace/Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano - Freeform, Post-The Burning Maze (Trials of Apollo), Post-The Tyrant's Tomb (Trials of Apollo), as a treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25083451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lleavingwonderland/pseuds/Lleavingwonderland
Summary: Percy heard it first from Chiron. The sink in the next room of the Big House exploded with water pressure. They said Caligula killed him--but Percy has heard enough excuses.Jason was a son of Zeus, who had shown himself perfectly capable of saving his children’s lives in the past. But this time gentle, loyal, pious Jason, who was set on bringing honor to all the gods, was dead and burnt in California, fighting a battle that Zeus himself could have prevented from happening with a lighting bolt Percy had personally risked his life for.or, Percy & co. finally have enough of the gods' bullshit after Jason's death and bring the fight to Zeus.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 90





	ni con los temblores tiemblo

_Look I didn’t want to be a half-blood._

Percy is so afraid of glamorizing the Olympians and the life of half-bloods. When he tells his story, he starts off denouncing his identity and ends it leaving and not looking back. 

He tells kids who think they might be one to run like hell and stay safe from the monsters. He looked at tiny geeky Nico di Angelo and felt pity. Even at fourteen he knew the darkness and danger he dwelt in. It was nothing to be excited about.

At some point he asked why. Why is it this way? This isn’t normal. A life expectancy in the teens is not normal. 

The response was always something like _but it is normal for people like us. You came into all this and had a quest at 12._ And yet no one stops to ask why Zeus thought it was ok to threaten a twelve year old and draw him into the middle of a war. 

How can the gods even pretend to be just? How can they justify siring children only to abandon them? To let them go to the slaughter just to save the gods some trouble? To run their errands to get some laurels after a glorious quest? 

The immortals love the idea of glory. 

Mortals, on the other hand, like the idea of being alive. 

* * *

Luke knew. Luke was thrown scraps, a lightly used relic of a magic item and told by his father to recreate a myth in the one quest he would be granted. Luke wanted to make his father proud. Quests go out in threes. No one ever talks about Luke’s questing companions—it’s because they didn’t come back. Luke gained a scar on his face and lost all trust in the Olympians. 

Percy saw him die. He saw where that doubt led—down a dark trail that ended in bad deals and suffering. Everyone called Luke a hero at the end, because he stopped Kronos from cleansing the earth, but Percy was there when he died. Luke never changed his mind. Luke never sided with the gods. Luke went to his grave a broken young man, a rebel for a lost cause. 

_Don’t let it happen again_ , he said. 

It had happened. Not an unclaimed child. Not a crowded cabin. But the rule of the gods. It kept happening. Their lack of foresight, their lazy reliance on heroes, their ambivalence to the Earth Mother, then to the triumvirate.

Zeus was a failing executive. 

His final failure, however, could not be called the straw that broke the camel’s back. If anything, it was the gun that blew the camel’s brains out. Same result: everything comes crashing down. 

Jason grace is dead. 

Percy heard it first from Chiron. The sink in the next room of the Big House exploded with water pressure. They said Caligula killed him. But Percy has heard enough excuses.

Jason was a son of Zeus, who had shown himself perfectly capable of saving his children’s lives in the past. But this time gentle, loyal, pious Jason, who was set on bringing honor to all the gods, was dead and burnt in California, fighting a battle that Zeus himself could have prevented from happening with a lighting bolt Percy had personally risked his life for. 

It burns through Percy’s veins like acid. Then beats in his heart like a promise. _Enough is enough, enough is enough._

He might be alone. He doesn’t care. 

His mother named him Perseus because she wanted to give him a happy ending. But his name doesn’t mean peace and tranquility and easy solutions. 

He storms out of the Big House collecting soldiers, people he’s fought beside for years since they were all small—far too small to know how to handle weapons. He can’t bring himself to even whisper treason, he cries out like his heart is crying for justice. And echoes ring out from a gathered crowd: those too tired and in afraid to stand by any longer. 

Zeus has outstayed his welcome as king. 

And Perseus means to destroy. 

* * *

“Show yourself” he screams. But zeus is a coward. Always has been. Or else he wouldn’t have made children fight his battles. Percy had beaten the war god at twelve, when he hadn’t even trained with a sword for a summer. Imagine what he could do to the sky god at seventeen. 

Apparently the sky god imagines it, too, because Olympus is closed again when the demigods come calling. 

But they can’t ignore him forever.

* * *

No one makes sacrifices at the meals anymore. Chiron raises a glass and says “to the gods” and is met with dead silence. Everyone here has lost someone. A sibling, a boyfriend, a best friend, their own innocence. 

Chiron used to say that demigods were the keepers of the flame, keeping the legacy strong, fueling the gods long life and power with honor and memory. 

If they are the keepers of the flame, then they should be able to snuff it out.

* * *

“We have to destroy the temples next,” he says. If there’s no sympathy among their Roman brothers and sisters, it could turn into an invasion, another civil war in a year’s time. It’s a risk they have to take. Jason was just as Roman as he was Greek. 

“Is this even what Jason would have wanted?” someone asks. It might be Annabeth, she’s often the voice of reason. But probably not, she didn’t like Jason, and she likes the gods even less. 

“We’ll never know what Jason would have wanted because Zeus had him killed.” That’s Nico. With his wicked sharp sword and even sharper smile, he’s been at the front of many of these meetings, more angry about Jason’s death than many people understand. 

Murmurs of agreement. 

* * *

The temples burn—and the ones that don’t burn get pulled down one stone at a time. 

Frank, strait laced honorable Praetor Frank, seems a lot less comfortable with this than Hazel is. His younger co-praetor grasps Percy’s arm and says “I’m with you”. 

Jupiter’s temple is made of stone. He proclaimed himself _optimus maximus_ and had a temple to match, securing his position as the king of the gods. His statue certainly made the best and greatest sound as it crashed to the ground wrapped in ropes and grappling hooks. Gold shouldn’t burn so the Hecate cabin gets involved—the goddess of magic’s children are mostly here for the chaos. Few of them were even at camp during the titan war, but they know their mother has never been honored by Zeus. 

The fire blazes all night, with more and more fuel added to it, to chants of Jason’s name. Dakota’s name. Gwen’s name. Charlie’s name. 

No one else here knew Ethan Nakamura but in a moment of quiet Percy starts screaming his name. _This is about balance_. Balance. But Zeus never wanted balance. He never wanted a compromise. He never wanted justice. He wanted to be powerful and feared. 

Soon a crowd of a hundred demigods, Greek and Roman, are screaming themselves hoarse to honor the memory of a kid they didn’t even know. 

They leave zeus’s disfigured statue on the blackened hill—a monument to demigod rage and the dawn of a new age.

* * *

Percy never bore ill will toward Poseidon—because he never did anything at all—until he appeared on the shore of camp half blood in full battle armor and tried to talk Percy out of this.

“Stand down,” Poseidon says. 

“Don’t stand in my way,” Percy counters. 

* * *

Thalia and Reyna arrive at camp days later. Reyna looks no different to the last time Percy saw her, but Thalia looks more ragged, tired. She’s not wearing her silver lieutenant’s circlet anymore. Percy never realized she dyed her hair, but her roots are blonde near her scalp. with that hair and her striking blue eyes she would look just like Jason. 

“Zeus and Hera have been a curse on my life,” Thalia says. “They took my mother and my brother from me.”

Percy nods, clasps her shoulders, all their old scores dimmed and fading in the face ofa tragedy and a common enemy. “You’ve lost more than most.”

“I want to make him suffer like this. If it’s the last thing I do in this life.”

Reyna stands beside her, eyes stormy, and simply holds her hand. 

It takes Percy a moment longer than it should to realize the difference—Thalia no longer has the blessing of Artemis. She’s mortal again. 

“You left the hunt,” Percy says. 

“Artemis would not accept us as we were,” Reyna’s voice is icy. “The gods want followers on their terms. Jason wasn’t the son Jupiter wanted. I am not the chaste huntress Artemis expects.”

Percy hugs them both like he’s seeing them for the first time. They’re powerful allies to have—Artemis or no. 

* * *

The goal is to storm Olympus—last time the gods wouldn’t listen to them they marched heavily armed into midtown and stood in the lobby until the security guard blanched and told them to hurry it up. This time they do the same. Some romans, some greeks. It doesn’t really matter anymore. 

Zeus is a coward and has always been a coward so he throws minor gods at them first. But most of them have spent their immortality and endless youth plucking harps and eating grapes. 

They fall or flee. The demigods advance. 

* * *

Thalia grips Percy’s arm so hard it feels like she’ll leave bruises. 

“I know you like everything to be about you,” she hisses, “but he was my brother. Zeus is mine.”

Percy doesn’t argue, for once, even though Thalia makes it so easy. He nods. She releases him. The next time he sees her she’s screaming obscenities at her father’s throne and brandishing her horrible shield. 

* * *

Because Zeus is evil and has always been evil he appears with a clap of thunder and the flash of the master bolt. There were never going to be negotiations. Thalia stands in between the crowd and Zeus, spear like a lightning rod, she absorbs it all. 

“Father,” she says. 

“It’s over,” Percy says, at her side. 

Nico stands there, silently, practically radiating darkness. 

He also lost a sibling to this life. “They always blame it on something else,” he said to Thalia. “On a prophecy, on their reckless behavior, on the danger in our blood. They never admit they were the ones who put us in danger in the first place.”

Hazel is one of the Romans that came. The daughter of Pluto, chosen by Hecate. A witch and a witch’s daughter, she didn’t even bring a sword. 

So here they are: the four children who should not be. The four children who the gods wanted killed. Why? Because they were a threat. Because they were too powerful. Too hard to control. 

Hazel moves her hands. 

Zeus becomes the height of a man. 

She joins hands with Nico. A shadow darkens around Zeus. 

His lightning is gone. 

Thalia and Percy fight like demons. Side by side, as if it hasn’t been years since they last met in battle.  His power sapped by the dark children of his shunned brother, the king of heaven stands no chance. 

Thalia drives her spear through him. Again. And again. 

And she screams. 

When it’s over Reyna appears behind her, less warlike than Percy has ever seen, and pulls Thalia away with both arms. “It’s over” she says, quietly, “He’s gone. It’s over.”

* * *

Percy expects a further challenge. But if their king was a coward he should have expected nothing better from the other gods. They don’t appear. 

Annabeth is the architect of Olympus. The roads and the temples and the arches, even the thrones are her handiwork—a monument to the gods for a new age. Percy experienced first hand the all nighters and long weekends she put into this project, the blood sweat and tears. 

Everyone looks to him as a leader, and he looks to her for direction, now. 

“Burn it to the ground” she says. 

In all of this neither of them has said Luke’s name, but Percy has thought it enough. And he knows her well enough—she’s thinking of him now. 

There’s no time to weep, though, so Percy clasps her shoulder and repeats the order at a yell: “Burn it to the ground."

**Author's Note:**

> title from Puesto Pa' Guerrial by bad bunny || trans 'nor with earthquakes do i tremble' 
> 
> remember kids: zeus is the big bad. fuck the gods.


End file.
